Raise Shields, ye skurvy sea dogs!

[Thiosk (OP)]

I ran a lovely combat that gutted my fleet against a technologically inferior enemy.  My beam PD had easily a 100% hit rate in final defensive fire mode.  However, he had on the order of 100 vessels firing large salvos simultaneously.  My entire complement of missile PD ran out after about 2 salvos, and while the full-sized quad turret gauss PD shredded every salvo they targeted, I started taking large amounts of damage.

However, the enemy was targeting a wide assortment of ships.  If I had just been running some shields, my primary command ship would have never probably remained active, and I would likely have survived the engagement. 

Lucky for me, enough of the beam PD ships escaped the carnage and sat quietly at the jump point until the enemy standard transited through.

Standard.  Transited.  Ha!  Shred city.

[Vynadan]

Conversely, a sustainable strategy always implies that a vast majority of the incoming missiles is countered in one way or the other.

This is not necessarily true, since at least during early to early mid game missiles could be countered by superior engine technology, making the enemy missiles miss. Note that I haven't done any math on what engine technology compared to what missile technology this would require.

A small bonus for large amounts of PD-beams is their minor contribution to an actual beam engagement, but you arguments for shields is more than valid.

However, even with shields, no defense strategy would be infinitly sustainable, as even shields consume fuel. With their quite low consumption they provide the defense with the longest durability, but this caps of their usability in incredibly high numbers.
Concerning their damage per second absorption, the increase in maximum capacity shield energy caused by more advanced technology fixes a generation of equally far advanced shield generators to exactly 300 seconds until full regeneration. I don't have aurora on my laptop, so I can't check how lower shield classification (say, alpha shields) with high regeneration rates affect the costs and consumption of the finished shield generator designs. Food for thought perhaps, would be an attempt to keep the total shield strength low and increase only the recharge for better damage per second regeneration.

[Marthnn]

I don't have aurora on my laptop, so I can't check how lower shield classification (say, alpha shields) with high regeneration rates affect the costs and consumption of the finished shield generator designs. Food for thought perhaps, would be an attempt to keep the total shield strength low and increase only the recharge for better damage per second regeneration.

Alpha shields (lvl1), no fuel efficiency, shield regeneration 1 : Shield strength 1, recharge rate 1 per 300 sec, fuel cost 10 (per 300 sec?)
Alpha shields (lvl1), no fuel efficiency, shield regeneration 5 : Shield strength 1, recharge rate 5 per 300 sec, fuel cost 10
Xi shields (lvl7), no fuel efficiency, shield regeneration 1 : Shield strength 5, recharge rate 1 per 300 sec, fuel cost 50
Xi shields (lvl7), no fuel efficiency, shield regeneration 5 : Shield strength 5, recharge rate 5 per 300 sec, fuel cost 50

Fuel cost is affected by the shield type and fuel efficiency, but not regeneration rate. Very interesting...

[Vynadan]

How does it impact research and production costs?

It might prove more cost efficient to produce lower-tier shields that regenerate their full strength within a five second increment (theoretically speaking, I doubt such a high regeneration is achievable). It would nullify the potential to build up higher defense capacities over time, but remain at the exact same damage per second absorption for the long haul.

[Marthnn]

Fuel efficiency only changes fuel consumption, not component cost nor component research cost, so there's no downside to it.

Both shield strength and shield regeneration tech cost 2 minerals (0.5 dur, plus 1.5 corb for shield and 1.5 bor for regen) and 200 RP per point given. Some shield techs only give half points (beta, delta). Xi shield gives 5 strength.

Example :
Alpha and regen1 will cost 4 and 400 RP.
Alpha and regen5 will cost 12 and 1200 RP.
Xi and regen1 will cost 12 and 1200 RP.
Xi and regen5 will cost 20 and 2000 RP.

I wouldn't know how to begin analysis of those costs...

For the performance of a low-strength high-regen shield, as long as the time to fully regenerate is longer than the delay between enemy attacks, all you lose is initial strength. Basically, the longer the engagement, the more important shield regen becomes. The shorter the engagement, the more important shield strength gets.

[Brian Neumann]

Unless something has changed drastically the fuel use of the shields is per day of being energized.  This only really becomes an issue when defending a jump point where you might want your shields up for months on end.

As for having lower strength shields with a faster recharge rate, it generally doesn't help over the higher strength shield.  This is because how many points are regenerated is always proportional to the total number of shields.  Even if you have a really high regen rate, that rate is still based on the total shield strength.  Some really basic math.  Delta shields and recharge rate give 2.5 shields per hull space.  If you up 1 level you get a total regen time of 240 seconds instead of 300.  10 hull spaces of shields give 25 total shield points with a recharge rate of .104 shields/second.  Epsilon shields with matching recharge rate are 3 points of shields per hull space and regen fully in 300 seconds.  This gives us a recharge rate of .1 shields/second.  There is a marginal improvement in how much you get back, but even over a 60 second cycle time it doesn't amount to 1 extra point of shielding.
 
Brian

[Marthnn]

The point of using lower tech shields with high regeneration would be to get cheap shields that are still effective, not to get even higher regeneration. Any gain you get would be from rounding errors...

The regen is based on total shield HS, not strength. With the end-game shield regeneration 15, you can get Alpha shields recharged to full in 20 seconds (which is the max possible). Is it any good? Well, for the same size ship, you could get shields that regenerate during a full 5 minutes at that same rate, able to sustain 15 times the punishment without failing. Using maximum available techs will always be superior (using hull space to its fullest) unless cost and build time is important to you.